We have three new interns joining our office today: David, Shin Hui, and Alyssa. The morning started with a chat with my office manager Nadirah on administrative stuff. Then a long session with the new interns. I explained to them the job of an MP (to legislate federal laws and monitor the federal finances; not jaga longkang and potholes) and how they will be helping out.
Besides community and office work, most interns will be encouraged to do public policy research. Hopefully by the end of the internship, they will complete a position paper on a matter of their interest. The typical topics that most interns are interested in are women rights, environmental matters, economic inequality and LGBT rights. The interns have to choose their own topics, read widely and then talk to me about them. I will then guide them through a variety of arguments and finally help them prepare a skeletal essay structure. Then off they go and produce a paper. If the paper is exceptional, we will rewrite it and later present it as a P104 paper.
BTW, I hope most of you are following our Monday Night Chat videos. If you have any questions that need me to answer for next week, please post your questions now. Tania (researcher and videographer) has requested that we shoot our video tomorrow instead of Friday.